Via Powerline we get this trip down memory lane. 1999 to be exact. It's a ABC news report which details all the connections between Saddam and Osama, of course this was before Bush came along and "cooked" the books according to the NYT's. First the video:

It took far too long, but a report by the Pentagon inspector general has finally confirmed that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfelds do-it-yourself intelligence office cooked up a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda to help justify an unjustifiable war.

The report said the team headed by Douglas Feith, under secretary of defense for policy, developed alternative assessments of intelligence on Iraq that contradicted the intelligence community and drew conclusions that were not supported by the available intelligence. Mr. Feith certainly knew the Central Intelligence Agency would cry foul, so he hid his findings from the C.I.A. Then Vice President Dick Cheney used them as proof of cloak-and-dagger meetings that never happened, long-term conspiracies between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden that didnt exist, and  most unforgivable  possible Iraqi coordination on the 9/11 attacks, which no serious intelligence analyst believed.

Of course they forget how many of the left's heroes were singing the words "Saddam and Osama" in the 90's and beyond. Short memory and all I suppose. Here is a refresher:

We have solid reporting of senior-level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaida going back a decade. - George Tenet 2002

there was that relationship that went from opposing each other to not opposing each other to possibly working with each other. - Patrick Fitzgerald 2004

In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members ... It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. - Sen. Hillary Clinton 2002

I want to be real clear about the connection with terrorists. I've seen a lot of evidence on this. There are extensive contacts between Saddam Hussein's government and al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. I never could reach the conclusion that [Saddam] was part of September 11. Don't get me wrong about that. But there was so much smoke there that it made me worry. And you know, some people say with a great facility, al Qaeda and Saddam could never get together. He is secular and they're theological. But there's something that tied them together. It's their hatred of us. - Sen. Joe Lieberman 2003

Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, a 37 year old Iraqi citizen, was a greeter at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia in August 2000 (I know, sounds kinda like wal-mart but apparently greeters are quite common in Southeast Asia). How was he hired to be a greeter? Ahmed had told associates that he had been hired by contact's in the Iraqi embassy. What's unusual is that it was this contact, not his employer, who told him when and where to report to.

In late December of 1999 the CIA, NSA and The State Department all received intelligence that indicated there would be a Al-Qaeda meeting in Malaysia in early January of 2000. The NSA had intercepted communications from those tied to the 1998 Kenya/Tanzania embassy bombings. The information was incomplete but did contain the names of three people, Khalid, Nawaf, and Salem.

The CIA and Malaysian intelligence set up a joint operation to track the meeting. They got many photographs of the principals arriving. Principals such as Khalid al Mihdhar (A known al-Qaeda associate), Nawaf al Hazmi, Yazid Sufaat (another known al-Qaeda associate) and Ramzi bin al Shibh. An interesting note about Ramzi, he would later brag to be the "coordinator of the holy tuesday operation" (9/11).

Ahmed was told to work the day these guys showed up. After greeting these fine folks Ahmed didn't go back to work but left with them to the meeting. The meeting ended on Jan 8th and Ahmed quit on the 10th.

The purpose of this meeting? The planning of attack on the USS Cole and 9/11. Malaysian and American intelligence bear this out. Don't believe it? Then guess who was on flight 77 on 9/11? Nawaf al Hazmi, his brother Salem and Khalid al Mihdhar...that's right, the same folks photographed upon their arrival for the above meeting.

Ahmed Hikmat Shakir  the Iraqi Intelligence operative who facilitated a 9/11 hijacker into Malaysia and was in attendance at the Kuala Lampur meeting with two of the hijackers, and other conspirators, at what is roundly acknowledged to be the initial 9/11 planning session in January 2000? Who was arrested after the 9/11 attacks in possession of contact information for several known terrorists? Who managed to make his way out of Jordanian custody over our objections after the 9/11 attacks because of special pleading by Saddams regime?

Saddam's intelligence agency's efforts to recruit jihadists to bomb Radio Free Europe in Prague in the late 1990's?

Mohammed Atta's unexplained visits to Prague in 2000, and his alleged visit there in April 2001 which  notwithstanding the 9/11 Commission's dismissal of it (based on interviewing exactly zero relevant witnesses)  the Czechs have not retracted?

The Clinton Justice Department's allegation in a 1998 indictment (two months before the embassy bombings) against bin Laden, to wit: In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq.

Seized Iraq Intelligence Service records indicating that Saddam's henchmen regarded bin Laden as an asset as early as 1992?

Saddam's hosting of al Qaeda No. 2, Ayman Zawahiri beginning in the early 1990s, and reports of a large payment of money to Zawahiri in 1998?

Iraqi Intelligence Service operatives being dispatched to meet with bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1998 (the year of bin Ladens fatwa demanding the killing of all Americans, as well as the embassy bombings)?

The continued insistence of high-ranking Clinton administration officials to the 9/11 Commission that the 1998 retaliatory strikes (after the embassy bombings) against a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory were justified because the factory was a chemical weapons hub tied to Iraq and bin Laden?

Top Clinton administration counterterrorism official Richard Clarkes assertions, based on intelligence reports in 1999, that Saddam had offered bin Laden asylum after the embassy bombings, and Clarkes memo to then-National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, advising him not to fly U-2 missions against bin Laden in Afghanistan because he might be tipped off by Pakistani Intelligence, and [a]rmed with that knowledge, old wily Usama will likely boogie to Baghdad? (See 9/11 Commission Final Report, p. 134 & n.135.)

Terror master Abu Musab Zarqawi's choice to boogie to Baghdad of all places when he needed surgery after fighting American forces in Afghanistan in 2001?

Saddam's Intelligence Service running a training camp at Salman Pak, were terrorists were instructed in tactics for assassination, kidnapping and hijacking?

Former CIA Director George Tenets October 7, 2002 letter to Congress, which asserted: Our understanding of the relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda is evolving and is based on sources of varying reliability. Some of the information we have received comes from detainees, including some of high rank.

We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda going back a decade.

Since Operation Enduring Freedom, we have solid evidence of the presence in Iraq of Al Qaeda members, including some that have been in Baghdad.

We have credible reporting that Al Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to Al Qaeda members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs.

Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians coupled with growing indications of relationship with Al Qaeda suggest that Baghdad's links to terrorists will increase, even absent U.S. military action.

But alas, it was Bushitler and his evil regime cooking the books, rubbing their hands in glee over a witches brew....

more than two years after the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein was ousted, there is much we do not know about the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. We do know, however, that there was one. We know about this relationship not from Bush administration assertions but from internal Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) documents recovered in Iraq after the war--documents that have been authenticated by a U.S. intelligence community long hostile to the very idea that any such relationship exists.

We know from these IIS documents that beginning in 1992 the former Iraqi regime regarded bin Laden as an Iraqi Intelligence asset. We know from IIS documents that the former Iraqi regime provided safe haven and financial support to an Iraqi who has admitted to mixing the chemicals for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. We know from IIS documents that Saddam Hussein agreed to Osama bin Laden's request to broadcast anti-Saudi propaganda on Iraqi state-run television. We know from IIS documents that a "trusted confidante" of bin Laden stayed for more than two weeks at a posh Baghdad hotel as the guest of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.

We have been told by Hudayfa Azzam, the son of bin Laden's longtime mentor Abdullah Azzam, that Saddam Hussein welcomed young al Qaeda members "with open arms" before the war, that they "entered Iraq in large numbers, setting up an organization to confront the occupation," and that the regime "strictly and directly" controlled their activities. We have been told by Jordan's King Abdullah that his government knew Abu Musab al Zarqawi was in Iraq before the war and requested that the former Iraqi regime deport him. We have been told by Time magazine that confidential documents from Zarqawi's group, recovered in recent raids, indicate other jihadists had joined him in Baghdad before the Hussein regime fell. We have been told by one of those jihadists that he was with Zarqawi in Baghdad before the war. We have been told by Ayad Allawi, former Iraqi prime minister and a longtime CIA source, that other Iraqi Intelligence documents indicate bin Laden's top deputy was in Iraq for a jihadist conference in September 1999.

There is a mountain of evidence to prove that Saddam did indeed have contacts with al-Qaeda. The Democrats were absolutely convinced of that fact back when ole' Bill was in office but they have a selective memory now.

In fact, during President Clinton's eight years in office, there were at least two official pronouncements of an alarming alliance between Baghdad and al Qaeda. One came from William S. Cohen, Mr. Clinton's defense secretary. He cited an al Qaeda-Baghdad link to justify the bombing of a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan.

Mr. Bush cited the linkage, in part, to justify invading Iraq and ousting Saddam. He said he could not take the risk of Iraq's weapons falling into bin Laden's hands.

The other pronouncement is contained in a Justice Department indictment on Nov. 4, 1998, charging bin Laden with murder in the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.

The indictment disclosed a close relationship between al Qaeda and Saddam's regime, which included specialists on chemical weapons and all types of bombs, including truck bombs, a favorite weapon of terrorists.

The 1998 indictment said: "Al Qaeda also forged alliances with the National Islamic Front in the Sudan and with the government of Iran and its associated terrorist group Hezbollah for the purpose of working together against their perceived common enemies in the West, particularly the United States. In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the government of Iraq."

Shortly after the embassy bombings, Mr. Clinton ordered air strikes on al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and on the Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan.

To justify the Sudanese plant as a target, Clinton aides said it was involved in the production of deadly VX nerve gas. Officials further determined that bin Laden owned a stake in the operation and that its manager had traveled to Baghdad to learn bomb-making techniques from Saddam's weapons scientists.

Now, conveniently, everyone has a memory loss. And our MSM continues to aid and abet that memory loss by ignoring their own past judgements.

A series of articles followed in the international, particularly Arabic, press about links between Iraq and bin Ladin. Some party/ies wanted to put the story out, it seems. Some information in the articles is known and reliable, like the role of Hassan Turabi, head of Sudan's Islamic movement, in putting Osama bin Ladin in contact with Iraqi intelligence, during bin Ladin's residence in Khartoum. But other information would not likely be known to outsiders and seems invented.

That said, on Dec 28, the Italian paper, Corriere della Sera, reported "Saddam Husayn and Osama Bin Ladin have sealed a pact. Faruq Hijazi, the former director of the Iraqi secret services and now the country's ambassador to Turkey, held a secret meeting with the extremist leader on 21 December. . . . Hijazi reiterated Iraq's amenability to offering shelter to Osama and to his mujahedin, 'You will always be a welcome guest. . . We cannot forget our debt of gratitude. This was a reference to the establishment last February of the 'International Islamic Front against the Crusaders and the Jews,' announced by Osama in the midst of one of the periodic crises between Iraq and the United Nations. . . The same ritual was reenacted during the most recent crisis. The day after the air strikes, Osama called an international news conference and issued a new statement, including threats that neither Washington nor London are taking lightly. . . . "

On Jan 1, the Paris-based, Al Watan Al Arabi, reported that in late Oct, 98, an Iraqi and Sudanese visited bin Ladin in Afghanistan. "Informed intelligence sources . . . were convinced that it was part of a new plan for cooperation and coordination, or more accurately a renewed one, between Iraq, bin Ladin and Sudan. Information available to these sources confirmed that bin-Ladin began to establish close ties with Iraq at least five years ago, specifically when the leader of Muslim extremists chose to reside in Sudan with the blessing and protection of Dr. Hassan al-Turabi, leader of the National Islamic Movement. These sources asserted that they received in the past few years confirmed and detailed information that cooperation between bin Ladin and Iraq entered 'an important and grave stage' through their cooperation in the field of producing chemical and biological weapons. "Al Watan al-Arabi's information indicated that several western diplomatic and security sources, including European ones, which have good relations with Sudan, warned in secret reports they sent at the end of last year that Iraq, Sudan, and bin Ladin were cooperating and coordinating in the field of chemical weapons. These reports said that several chemical factories were built in Sudan. They were financed by bin Ladin and supervised by Iraqi experts and technicians following a deal between Baghdad, Khartoum, and bin-Ladin. . . . "Informed sources asserted that the meeting was extremely serious. The two sides laid down the details of the biggest act of cooperation and coordination between the extremist Islamic organizations and Baghdad for confronting the United States, the common enemy. This information indicated that the meeting focused on the ways with which Iraq could help the germ and chemical weapons laboratories. A second meeting was held later in which "Bin Ladin stressed to the Iraqi envoys that he could reach areas, which the Iraqi intelligence could not reach. He referred to the spread of his cells in the Arab countries and the world and focused on his ability to penetrate Arab and Islamic countries through fundamentalist groups."

On Jan 10, the Saudi-financed, London-based, weekly, Al-Majallah, reported that in Oct 98, an Iraqi intelligence official met with the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, Osama bin Ladin, and Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, leader of Egypt's Jihad movement. In Dec, according to Al-Majllah, the Iraqi embassy in Islamabad held a series of meetings with "leaders of a number of Pakistani fundamentalist movements and elements from the Taleban, with the knowledge of Pakistani military intelligence . . . On 21 December a high-ranking Iraqi diplomat normally based in Turkey visited Taleban leader Mullah Omar's residence in Kandahar, then headed for Khowat where he met with bin Ladin and al-Zawahiri. . . . [He] affirmed to his Afghan and Arab audience Iraq's willingness to provide financial, logistic, political and informational support for the Taleban and the Afghan Arabs."

Yeah, memory loss, that's the ticket.

But according to today's NYT's, there was never ANY intelligence to indicate Saddam and Osama were buddies. Nope. All a figment of our imagination.

this wilting and waffling of american will to differentiate right from wrong will be the downfall. the terrorists? love the confusion in america and its easy to generate new divisive b/s for the mindsets to try to grapple with. all of it wastes american resources and gives them time and accordingly power to continue their agenda , unabated.

Just damn! No WMDs and no al Quada link. That thar' Bush sure is a liar. I sure wish the ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN would tell the Amerikan public how stupid they were to have elected this big fat LIAR twice to the Office of POTUS. Now the Clintons and the Democrat administrations/ legislatures sure are honest, and they have Amerika's best interests at heart.

Only one cure for these lying Republicans - elect the grand Caliphate and Umma, Hillary!

5
posted on 02/11/2007 2:25:49 PM PST
by Thommas
(The snout of the camel is in the tent..)

Its amazing that suddenly all these media people have this just-add-water campaign to 'prove' the Saddam was never connected to Al Qaeda. Even FNC this morning was blocking for the NYT and Al Reuters. This is all obviously a PR flanking manuever to support somebody's agenda. I'm just waiting to see who will be stepping forward to announce something so I know who this propaganda is being provided on behalf of.

This is way too big of a propaganda offensive just to bolster the senate democrat efforts to pass useless resolutions against the Surge. This must be flanking an effort to pull out of Iraq entirely so I'd be looking for Hillary to sudden announce that she has concluded that 'there is no choice' but to withdraw immediately 'because of the faulty intelligence and disasterous lack of leadership'. Lets see if it takes more or less than a week for this to occur.

What's amazing is how thoroughly the msm has buried James Woolsey - former CIA director, and what he has to say about intelligence on the mutual attraction and twisted skeins of complicity between America's two most implacable enemies.

Woolsey testifed at the NY trial that led a federal judge to find Iraq monetarily responsible to victims of al Qaeda's 1993 WTC bombing.

While Saddam may not have PLANNED the hit .. I'm very confident he was happy to be complicit in it .. and allowed terrorists to train on Iraq soil. And .. if Saddam was not complicit in the hit .. then why on earth would he have commissioned the above picture showing his glee at the event ..?? Maybe Osama personally didn't contact Saddam about this hit .. but Saddam was still involved in it - of that I'm very sure.

And Saddam kept his end of the deal ... chem-bio trainers were sent to Afghanistan to do training for Osama's people. But I'm still waiting for the evidence from Salaman Pak to surface showing Saddam helped train 911 murderers. If that ever surfaces, the democrap party will be head deep in their own sludge and the spittle of media whoredom will drown this nation as they try to spin it away for their damned democrats.

22
posted on 02/11/2007 4:26:19 PM PST
by MHGinTN
(If you've had life support. Promote life support for others.)

After church yesterday, I saw this thread and was going to do a follow-up post. Instead, what I ended up with is a LINK SAMPLER which some of you Freepers and researchers might find interesting.

OPINION: The jihad is fueled by hate. The glue that binds that global jihad together is their hateful agenda. The internet is the primary communication tool which enables the global jihad to teach, preach, raise funds, and recruit.

Ah yes. That was always confirmation to me as well. I'll never forget the day it was plastered on the front page of the NY Post. I guess he just took that picture for posterity. Anyone with any intelligence would read that mural of Sadam has his taking credit for the act. It's mind boggling that representatives at the highest level of government get away with accusing the President of lying about the war. Maybe it's time we start re-hashing more of this type of stuff and figuring out a way to get it out there.

Not one scintilla! I dare anyone to find a single scintilla of evidence in there. By the way, what does a scintilla look like? I've always pictured something akin to Donald Trump's hairdo with legs, but I digress. But really, how many times have you heard some idiot like Charlie Rangel say that there "... is not one scintilla of evidence that Osama babysat Saddam's grandchildren, blah blah..." So, where are the scintillas? Perhaps the Democrat Party should start acknowledging facts and stop believing their own lies.

ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Of particular interest is the revelation about Mohammed's involvement in the '93 bombing. It shows a linkage not only between the '93 WTC attack and 9/11, but also between Iraq and al-Qaida.

We already know, for instance, that Abdul Rahman Yasin, the Iraqi responsible for carrying out the '93 bombing, found a haven in Iraq for a decade after the attack. Yasin worked closely with another al-Qaida operative, Ramzi Yousef, on the '93 WTC bombing.

For the record, Yousef is Mohammed's nephew. He was described by the National Commission On Terrorism's 9/11 report as 'the mastermind' of the '93 bombing. And according to U.S. intelligence, he got funding from al-Qaida.

Intelligence documents captured in Baghdad in September 2003 show that Yasin and the others received financial aid from the Iraqi government. This raises a big question: Why would Iraq, under international scrutiny for both WMD and sanctions, support a known terrorist with ties to al-Qaida? The only reasonable answer is, it wanted to keep Yasin quiet about Iraq's involvement. There's ample evidence of Iraq's role in 9/11 too. The lead 9/11 hijacker, Mohammed Atta, met at least twice with Iraqi intelligence in Europe before carrying out the attacks. And Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, an Iraqi intelligence operative, attended a key meeting of the 9/11 hijackers and other al-Qaida terrorists in January 2000.

Upon capture, Shakir was found to be in contact with Zahid Sheikh Mohammed, brother of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Iraqi Musab Yasin, brother of Abdul Rahman Yasin, and Ibrahim Ahmad Suleiman, a '93 WTC conspirator.

It's pretty clear that al-Qaida and Iraq, far from being enemies, were tactical allies against the U.S. As such, removing Hussein wasn't a distraction from our war on terror; it was vital to it."

And yet this is nothing like the revisionist history we get on any MSM newscast or website. I post often in leftist infested sites such as "Newshounds" and I'll say it's long been my experience that while one side of their mouth screams "we were LIED to!" the other side is lying to make their case. They don't want to know the truth, and worse, MSM including (but not as bad) Fox news doesn't want us to know it. It's not in their best interest economically to print "and they lived happily ever after" (or we won the war, we were right about Saddam, NEXT!) and what sells like a White House scandal? Never mind it was a setup by one Joe Wilson, the first and only person to offer (false) evidence bridging the wide chasm between bad intel and knowledgeable deceit. (if Cheney was building a false case for war by "stovepiping" intel, why did request the CIA, or "normal channels", get to the bottom of it? They forget that detail) It makes me want to puke knowing this nation has so many people that would willingly participate in efforts to lose wars and bring America to its knees in shame before the world on their own false pretense. Now they've repeated their lies so often the world sees it as fact. I would like to blame it all on political partisanship, but they seem to enjoy failure and all its associated self flaggelation. As displayed by their "anybody but Bush" platform in 2004, liberal political strategists seem to have learned their tactics not from college or human experience, but from observing the primate exhibits at their local zoo. By portraying the war as a loss, telling the Iraqis that the soldiers who act as enforcers of White House policy are there based solely on lies, fulfilling their prediction, one can only imagine they think this is good campaign strategy: Like monkeys in a cage, they smear poop on themselves, on the rest of us, all over everything-denigrating all of us shamefully- just to show they are better at licking it off.

This administration has done a horrible job of PR on every issue. They seem to be afraid to confront the press and the Democrats head on, on any issue. It drives me crazy.

My husband does the same thing when we disagree. He just says, "You're right," and walks away. You know you didn't win, and he doesn't really agree, he just refuses to argue the point. Or, he'll say, I'll think about it, but you know he won't.

In this case though, the Bush administration should know that kind of answer won't end the issue. It will only empower the Democrats, just the way Clinton empowered the terrorists by not facing up to the threat.

On that one I have to agree, particularly with the failure to put a fatwa (symbolically, of course, like Rushdie) on the head of the admittedly clever liberal journalist who came up with the idea that we were supposed to produce "X" ammount of WMD stockpiles for the inspection of critics who would never be happy with less than a large conspicuous warehouse with pallets stacked to the ceiling stenciled in bright color, "Saddam's WMD". Without it, the war is without justification. Yeah. Why didn't Rummy come out and say "so damn what? Saddam at this point is a convicted murderer on parole, who refused to keep promises he signed to keep in the cease fire. Do we lock up murder weapons and allow murderers to roam free?" Instead they played into their hands with the "I KNOW they are over here somewhere!"..... In the end it isn't bumbling so much as being naive that Saddam being an ******* was good enough for Americans to get behind. Maybe it's the sign of the times that since Vietnam when America goes to war your greatest threat from the scurrilous evils of the enemy's offensive thrusts is from your flanks.

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